Oswald de Lacy was never meant to be the Lord of
Somerhill Manor. Despatched to a
monastery at the age of seven, sent back at seventeen when his father and two
older brothers are killed by the Plague, Oswald has no experience of running an
estate. He finds the years of pestilence
and neglect have changed the old place dramatically, not to mention the
attitude of the surviving peasants. Yet
some things never change. Oswald's
mother remains the powerful matriarch of the family, and his sister Clemence
simmers in the background, dangerous and unmarried. Before he can do anything, Oswald is
confronted by the shocking death of a young woman, Alison Starvecrow. The ambitious village priest claims that
Alison was killed by a band of demonic dog-headed men. Oswald is certain this is nonsense, but
proving it - by finding the real murderer - is quite a different matter. Every step he takes seems to lead Oswald
deeper into a dark maze of political intrigue, family secrets, and violent
strife. And then the body of another
girl is found. SD Sykes brilliantly
evokes the landscape and people of medieval Kent in this thrillingly
suspenseful debut entitled The Plague. The
Plague is due to be published in October 2014.
In the wake of a failed attack on America's premier
theme park, which put his own daughter at risk, Special Forces operator Jad
Bell is sent after the man who arranged it.
But it soon becomes clear that capturing him is just the start: his
employer, known only as the Architect, has already set something far worse in
motion. At the centre of it all are two
women deep under cover. One is an
American spy whose intel is the only hope they have, but who has lived a lie
for so long she cannot be trusted. And
the other is a woman as beautiful as she is deadly, already living in the
States, and poised to execute the Architect's plans at a moment's notice. The stakes are even higher, the clock is
ticking, and this time the enemies are hiding in plain sight... Bravo is
by Greg Rucka and is due to be published by July 2014.
Hunter-Killer
is by Chris Ryan and is due to be
published in September 2014. Following a
suicide bombing in central London, series SAS hero Danny Black is recruited to
be part of an assassination squad, directed by a joint MI5/MI6/CIA committee
and tasked with hunting down and killing the terrorist cells believed to be
planning further atrocities. Early leads
take them to a North London mosque and a one-armed hate cleric, whom the Home
Secretary repeatedly tries and fails to expel from the country, a sleazy Saudi
prince living in a Park Lane Hotel - on the surface a devout Muslim, he devotes
himself to booze, drugs and hookers as soon as his family are out of the
building - and a grizzled ex-Regiment guy who is spreading rumours that Diana
was assassinated by the SAS in the tunnel in Paris because of her Arab lover. The trail of clues takes Danny to a training
camp in the Yemen, but just as he has the enemy in his sights, he discovers
that they are somehow one step ahead of him, and he begins to suspect that they
are being topped off by someone close to home.
The Secret Place
is by Tana French and is due to be published in August 2014. The photo shows a boy who was murdered a year
ago. The caption says, “I know who killed him”. Detective Stephen Moran hasn't seen Holly
Mackey since she was a nine-year-old witness to the events of Faithful Place. Now she's sixteen and she's shown up outside
his squad room, with a photograph and a story.
Even in her exclusive boarding school, in the graceful golden world that
Stephen has always longed for, bad things happen and people have secrets. The previous year, Christopher Harper, from
the neighbouring boys' school, was found murdered on the grounds. And today, in the Secret Place - the school
noticeboard where girls can pin up their secrets anonymously - Holly found the
card. Solving this case could take
Stephen onto the Murder squad. But to
get that solved, he will have to work with Detective Antoinette Conway - tough,
prickly, an outsider, everything Stephen doesn't want in a partner. And he will have to find a way into the
strange, charged, mysterious world that Holly and her three closest friends
inhabit and disentangle the truth from their knot of secrets, even as he starts
to suspect that the truth might be something he doesn't want to hear.
Judged: As he watches, her body drifts below the water's
surface, forever altered. Before he
disposes of each victim, he takes a trophy.
It's a sign of his power, and a warning - to the one destined to suffer
most of all...Condemned In Grizzly
Falls, Montana, Detectives Selena Alvarez and Regan Pescoli are struggling with
a new commander and a department in the midst of upheaval. It's the worst possible time for a
homicide. A body has been found, missing
a finger. Alvarez hopes this means a
murderer with a personal grudge, not a madman.
But then a second body turns up...Executed:
As the clues begin pointing toward a suspect, Pescoli's unease grows. She senses there's more to this case than
others believe. A killer has made his
way to Grizzly Falls, ready to fulfil a vengeance years in the making. And Pescoli must find the target of his wrath
- or die trying... Deserves to Die is by Lisa Jackson and is due to be published in
July 2014.
Havana in the 1850s is a city as dangerous as it is
exotic. The murder of a humble night
watchman at the British Consulate seems to worry neither the Consul nor the
police. But one person cared for the old
man. The enigmatic courtesan Leonarda
will not rest until she understands the mystery of his death. In wintry England, George Backhouse is
plucked from obscurity in the Foreign Office and given an unexpected promotion. His task: to travel to Cuba and take a stand
against the illegal slave trade still flourishing there. But Havana is a tinderbox of intrigue. As the great powers of the region conspire
against each other with increasing ruthlessness for control of the island,
Backhouse comes to see that the most innocent of actions could spark a
devastating war. To protect their interests, the powers-that-be in
Whitehall are prepared to turn a blind eye to many things. Leonarda will not. But what of George Backhouse? Havana
Sleeping is by Martin Davies and is due to be published in September 2014.
Who can be trusted, when betrayal is a way of life? Danny Curnow used to run agents and informers
during the Troubles. Now he lives in
quiet isolation in northern France. The
covert world of deception and betrayal he left behind came close to destroying
him. Fifteen years later, when the call
comes from his old boss, the stakes are higher, the risks are greater, and if
he wants to survive, Danny will have to prove that he has not softened – that
he is just as hard and ruthless as before.
Vagabond is by Gerald Seymour
and is due to be published in July 2014.
Vendetta is by Dreda Say Mitchell and is due to be published in
November 2014. 'If you seek revenge, dig two graves.’ Undercover cop John 'Mac' MacDonagh has been
living a double life, infiltrating the network of Reuben Volk, one of London's
deadliest criminals. But the brief
definitely didn't include falling in love with a member of Volk's gang: the
beautiful and enigmatic Elena Romanov. Now
Elena has been murdered. Waking in his
hotel to discover her battered body in the next room, Mac is left with no clue
as to who killed her - or why. In fact,
all the evidence suggests that it was Mac who killed her, but he can't believe
that. Or can he? With the police on his tail he enters into a
race against time. All he knows is that
something is happening at 11pm, something that could help him to uncover the
truth. Was Mac framed? Or does he really have a dead woman's blood
on his hands?
White Lies is by Stephen leather and is due to be published in
August 2014. Dan 'Spider' Shepherd is
used to putting his life on the line - for his friends and for his job with MI5. So when one of his former apprentices is
kidnapped in the badlands of Pakistan, Shepherd doesn't hesitate to join a
rescue mission. But when the rescue plan
goes horribly wrong, Shepherd ends up in the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists. His SAS training is of little help as his
captors beat and torture him. Shepherd's
MI5 controller Charlotte Button is determined to get her man out of harm's way,
but to do that she's going to have to break all the rules. Her only hope is to bring in America's finest
- the elite SEALs who carried out Operation Neptune Spear - in a do-or-die
operation to rescue the captives. White
Lies is a fast paced, seat-of-your-pants thriller, which will have you, hooked
from the first page until the last.
The
Competition is by Marcia Clark and is
due to be published in July 2014. It's
every parent's worst nightmare. A Columbine-style
massacre in a crowded high school hall has left the community shocked to the
core. Two students are identified as the
killers. Both are dead, believed to have
committed a mutual suicide. But in the
aftermath, as LA Special Trials prosecutor Rachel Knight and Detective Bailey
Keller dig deeper, they realise that the pieces don't add up. Did the shooters really kill themselves? Or are they still on the loose? When someone starts dropping clues that
another horrific crime is in the works, Rachel and Bailey scramble desperately
to identify their suspects. The question
now isn't whether they plan to kill again.
It's whether they can be stopped...
The Suicide Club is a First World War spy thriller set in Occupied
Belgium in 1917, and tells the dark, disturbing and untold story of the shadow
espionage battle fought behind the lines.
The Suicide Club is by Andrew
Williams and is due to be published in November 2014. August 1917.
Europe is mired in bloody stalemate at Passchendaele. Soldier spy Sandy Innes is not best pleased
to be summoned from his undercover work in Belgium and seconded to British Army
Headquarters. Field Marshal Haig's
intelligence chief wants Innes's expertise - and access to his spy network - in
preparation for the Big Push he hopes will win the war by Christmas. But Innes's boss, the wily Mansfield Cumming,
head of the new Secret Service, has his own reasons for securing Innes a place
on Haig's Staff - there are, he tells Innes, 'concerns' in government about the
army's intelligence operation. Innes
deduces that it must be a great deal more serious than that if Cumming's
political masters want him to spy on the senior officers of their own
army. Behind the lines at H.Q., his new
boss, Brigadier General Charteris, largely ignores Innes’s briefings on the
German defences in Belgium. Instead he
discovers he is to be part of an advance assault group that will prepare the
way for the British 'breakthrough'. The
other Intelligence Officers have a name for the group: 'The Suicide Club'. It is clear they have little faith in
Charteris and his schemes, and are deeply suspicious of the advice he is
offering Haig. They tell Innes that one
of their number questioned the integrity of Charteris's intelligence reports,
but died in mysterious circumstances before he could take it further. As Innes digs deeper, he discovers that the
dead man had begun to investigate Charteris's prized spy network in Belgium,
Operation Faust. In what becomes a race
against time, Innes must uncover a traitor, protect his own network, and
survive membership of The Suicide Club.
On the rain-drenched, wave-lashed, wind-battered
Banffshire coast, tiny fishing villages perch on ledges which would make a
seagull think twice and crumbly mansions cling to crumblier cliff tops while,
out in the bay, the herring drifters brave the storms to catch their silver
darlings. It's nowhere for a child of
gentle Northamptonshire to spend Christmas.
But when odd things start to turn up in barrels of fish - with a strong
whiff of murder most foul - that's exactly where Dandy Gilver finds herself. Enlisted to investigate, she and her trusty
cohort Alec Osborne are soon swept up in the fisherfolk's wedding season as
well as the mystery. Between age-old
traditions and brand-new horrors, Dandy must think the unthinkable to solve her
grisliest case yet. Dandy Gilver and the Reek of
Red Herrings is by Catriona McPherson and is due to be published in July
2014.
Also due to be published is a
currently untitled Ali Knight novel and is due to be published in November
2014. Shy and gentle Darren Sears was
only eleven when his sister Jodie and six other girls disappeared, presumed
murdered by notorious killer Alicia Duvall.
Ten years later, Darren's mother, now sick with cancer, demands Alicia
reveal where Jodie's remains are, but her plea ends in humiliation and
failure. Desperate to alleviate his
mum's heartbreak, Darren gets a job as a cleaner in the psychiatric hospital
where Alicia is committed, hoping he can find out the truth. But trying to play a serial killer is a very
dangerous game...
There is also a currently untitled
book by Fergus McNeill. Nigel never
meant for it to happen. At first, he
just wanted to be Matt's friend. But
when he discovers he can hear what is going on in the flat below him, his
fascination with his new neighbour drifts into obsession. Rearranging his furniture to recreate the
layout of the rooms downstairs. Buying
the same clothes, going through his post, his things. Becoming Matt without him ever knowing. And it would have been all right, if Matt
hadn't brought the girl home. When
things spiral out of control, Detective Inspector Harland has to unravel the
disturbing truth. But there's far more
to the case than meets the eye .
Hayes Bannock is a Texas Ranger, a natural
"lawman" who is tough, taciturn, perceptive, and guarded. Several years ago, his life was derailed by a
tragic chain of events, including the death of his wife in a car accident. Now he's trying to regain custody of his five-year-old
daughter, Georgia, who has been living with his in-laws for the past four
years. Judge Emory Charbonneau is the
presiding judge at Georgia Bannock's custody hearing. Smart and ambitious, she wants to keep the
bench to which she was temporarily appointed, which means winning the upcoming
election. But just as she is about to
render her decision in Georgia's custody hearing, a man dressed in painter's
coveralls and a mask barges into the courtroom and opens fire. A beloved bailiff is fatally shot and Hayes
rushes to Emory, shielding her with his own body and saving her life --
sparking a dangerous attraction between the two. A chase ensues, and the shooter is eventually
cornered and killed. But after seeing the dead body in the morgue, Hayes realizes
that the man killed was not the same man who opened fire in the judge's
courtroom. The actual shooter is still
at large and Emory's life is still in danger. Who was the shooter's
actual target and why? As Hayes and
Emory attempt to track him down, they realize that everyone in the courthouse
that day is a suspect, and that nobody is who they seem. Mean
Streak is by Sandra Brown and is due to be published in September 2014.
Death in The
Tuscan Hills is by Marco Vichi and is
due to be published in October 2014. Spring,
1967. The trail of tragedy and
destruction that followed the previous winter's flood seems to have died down;
Florence is beginning to recover. But
Inspector Bordelli does not feel the same sense of relief - he has not had a moment's
peace since his investigation of a young boy's murder went disastrously wrong. Unsettled and embittered, Bordelli resigns
from the force and leaves the city. He
could not continue to work as a policeman while the perpetrators of such a
terrible crime were still at large. Now,
in the solitude of his new home in the Tuscan hills, he spends his days
cooking, going for long walks, and learning to grow his own vegetables. But the thought of that case - of justice not
served - is constantly with him. Until
fate, in which he has never believed, unexpectedly offers him the chance of retribution.
Everyone keeps telling me I have to move on. And so here I am, walking down the road where
he died, trying to remember him the right way.
A year after her husband Zach's death, Lizzie goes to lay flowers where
his fatal accident took place. As she
makes her way along the motorway, she thinks about their life together. She wonders whether she has changed since
Zach died. She wonders if she will ever
feel whole again. At last she reaches
the spot. And there, tied to a tree, is
a bunch of lilies. The flowers are
addressed to her husband. Someone has
been there before her. Lizzie loved
Zach. She really did. But she's starting to realise she didn't
really know him. Or what he was capable
of ... Remember Me This Way is by Sabine Durrant and is due to be
published in July 2014.
After a hazardous stint in the US law enforcement,
Valentine Pescatore is trying to start over in Buenos Aires. But everything changes when an old friend
reappears – just before a terrorist attack.
A call placed to Pescatore’s phone makes him a suspect, and he knows
there is only one possible connection.
To clear his name, he must join agents from three countries to track the
suspected terrorist who was once his closest confidant. From the jungles of South America to the
streets of Paris, from the mansions of the Spanish Riviera to the compounds of
Baghdad The Convert’s Song leads
Pescatore on a high-speed chase to stop the deadly convert before he strikes
again. The Convert’s Song is by Sebastian Rotella and is due to be
published in December 2014.
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